Theatre Lighting is a mixture of technical and artistic skill. It takes about 12 hours to cover all of the following so it is recommended to do it in several sections. As an overview it can be covered in 4 hours. There is no shortcut to good lighting.

TECHNICAL SKILLS – Stage Lighting Mechanics

Stage safety.

            Safety Guidelines For The Entertainment Industry can be found on the Live Performance Australia website https://liveperformance.com.au/resource?keyword=safety

Regulations

Health Public Buildings Act http://www.public.health.wa.gov.au/cproot/1718/2/Public%20Buildings%20Guidelines%20Final.pdf

Working At Heights Code Of Practice https://www.safeworkaustralia.gov.au/doc/model-code-practice-managing-risk-falls-workplaces


Rigging safety.
           
Lighting Bars – http://www.jands.com.au/brands/jands/lighting_bars/jlx_lite

Lantern yoke, locks, safety wire, colour frame, accessories
Ladder safety
Platform ladders – http://www.sydneytools.com.au/shopexd.asp?id=16921&bc=no

Scaffold

Elevated Work Platforms

Objectives of stage lighting.

            Illumination or Selective Visibility

            Dimension or Composition  – keeping it 3D

            Selectivity – revealing and hiding

            Atmosphere or Mood – controlling the audiences perception of time or place.


Properties of light

            Direction

            Intensity – Dimmers, neutral density gels

            Shape – shutters, barndoors, gobos, edge focus, smoke or haze.

            Colour – black and white are colours

            Movement – walking through gobos, rotating gobos, moving lights, projection.

Electrical safety. – http://www.hse.gov.uk/pubns/indg247.pdf

Lethal current
Earthing of lanterns

Circuit breakers

Fuses

Cables

Visual Inspection before Every use.

Testing and Tagging

Basic lantern types.

Floods

Profiles – Base Down and Axial or Ellipsoid

            Gobos

Fresnels – lens – barndoors

Parcans

LED’s

Lighting angles.

McAndless method – front keylights 45 degree each side and up and backlight

Dance – Sidelight, backlight and frontlight

Music – Atmospheric, light sheet music, liaasse with musicians


Lighting desks

Basic Presets

 Modern theatre desk – programming and use

Computer based – Light Factory – programming and use.

Moving lights desks –

 
Calculation of Power usage

 Watts is power consumption of a fixture

Three phase power

Dimmer Racks

            Conventional

            Sine Wave

            Switching options


Patching and cables.


Colour.

Additive Mixing – Primary RGB, Secondary CMY

Subtractive Mixing

Gels – Swatch books – The Art of Light – Lee http://www.clearlight.com.au/media/Lee_Filters/lee_filters_brochure.pdf The Rosco Guide to Color Filters http://www.clearlight.com.au/media/Rosco_Filters/rosco_filters_brochure.pdf

Split gels

Dichroic colour filters

Colour Scrollers

Special effects.
            Gobos – fixed and moving

Effects projectors – Flame, water ripple, clouds, snow, strobes, u/v, moons, stars

Lamps, candles, scrims, haze, smoke

ARTISTIC SKILLS – Stage Lighting Design

Basic stage lighting design.
Stage areas – usually same as director – DSL,DSC,DSR, MSL,C,R, USL,C,R


Script Analysis – read through to get feeling, then to get cues and state changes
            use a pencil and put tabs of pages for lighting cues.


Lighting plans.
            Drawing Scale – usually 1:25 –
            Scale plan and side elevation of the set
           Stencils – speed up drawing plan, protractor, ruler, erasor – http://www.clsa.com.au/sales/stencils/stencils.html
            Legend
            Fixtures
            Circuit or patch – octagonal box
            Desk channel – circle
            Dimmer channel – square box


Documentation.


Script analysis.

Rigging a show

Focussing.

Square one rig.

Technical rehearsals
Desk plotting.
Setting Fade Times
Stage workers for scene changes
Recording Scenes
Editing Scenes
Recording Stacks
Assigning Stacks
Editing StacksRunning s show
            Lamp checks.

Page updated 15 May 2023